Share via

Data View Nodes

  • Article

External data objects are exposed in the Visual Studio Server Explorer as data view nodes. There are three types of data view nodes:

  • Connection Node
    Represents a top-level node in a given data view; a connection node is always a direct child of the Server ExplorerData Connections node. A connection node may represent a single data object in the data source or a static node with no underlying object.

  • Static Node
    Represents a data view node that has no underlying data object, but is useful for exposing views of things like collections (as of tables or other data views). A static node acts as a placeholder in the object hierarchy for collections of data objects. A static node can also represent known objects in the data source that cannot be enumerated—for example, some system objects.

  • Selection Node
    Represents a single data object in the data source exposed by a data object selection. For this reason, a selection node always represents an actual data object in the data source. For the given selection, the selection node represents information for each node resulting from the selection. In the schema hierarchy, the SelectionNode Element is always a child of the Selection Element.

Features of Data View Nodes

Data view nodes have special features. In fact, of the seven features of data view nodes, three are common to all node types, and the remaining four apply only under special circumstances. These features are referred to as common node features and special node features, respectively.

Common Node Features

  • Node ID

  • Node Display Name

  • Node Children

Special Node Features

  • Node Icons

  • Conditionally Hiding Nodes

  • Static Properties

  • Object Connection Node Types